Context Navigation

General

With the Sequence Helper you can add animation to your scene. First of all you can use it to show animated modifier behaviour, such as Ripple, Twist, Taper, Wave and many more, on a single piece of geometry. Secondly you can create a Sequence of several objects, which will change place during a certain timeframe.

Possible uses:

You could the sequence to for instance.:

Create the rippling surface on a piece of water (see demonstration 1);

Create a working traffic light (see demonstration 2);

Create opening doors and windows;

Add moving automobiles and people to your scene;

Show a slide show on a television in your model;

Many, many more...

To create a Sequence Helper in 3d Studio Max

Create some geometry;

Add a nice modifier to this (for instance Wave);

Animate this modifier over a certain amount of time;

Add a OSG Sequence Helper object to your scene;

Add the modified object to the 'None'-button in the Sample Geometry part of the Modify-tab

Adjust sequence interval, duration and mods appropriately (see below)

Export and voila, your scene is animated!

The options for the Sequence Helper

Other options

Sequence Interval: The part of the scene that is exported. If you want continuous animation, set this to '-1.0' This way the animation will be repeated with no delay. If the value if larger than the duration of the animation, the remainder of the time a pause will be taken between the animations. With Loop Mode, you can specify how the animation will be played. With Loop, the animation will be played over and over again from beginning to end. With Swing, it will behave like the pendulum of a clock: first the animation is played for start to finish, then from finish to start, then from start to finish again... etcetera. When using static geometry you have to specify for every object the time frame in which it becomes visible. Only one object of the sequence will be visible at any time.

Sequence Duration: Specify speed and number of repeats. Strangely, the higher the Speed-value is, the slower the animation gets. 'Reps' allows you to set the number of repeats. The value '-1' presumably lets the animation run forever, but this has never been tested off course :)

Sequence Mode: just leave at play. The other states are probably used in scripting events???

Sequence Objects: lets you specify the objects involved. In Sample Geometry you secify a single, animated, obejct. By selecting 'Use Static Geometry' you can add up to 5 objects that will trade places after the given Frame Time.

Demonstration

These three frames show how the Sequence Helper changes the lights of the traffic light. Actually there are six spheres used for this sequence. Three are the unlit 'lights'. These are always visible. Three sphere with a 'Self-Illumated' material are placed in exactly the same location as their unlit counterpart, but only one at a time. Thus the illusion of the lights actually changing is created.
In front of the house and traffic light a swimming pool is visible. The water surface is a plane with a tripple Wave modifier, animated over a certain time frame. In both examples the timing is not perfect. In the ripple a slight distrubance in the water rythem can be seen and in real life the orange light does not stay lit just as long as red and green.